In keeping with their tradition of pushing the innovation and performance boundaries through their ROG product line, ASUS today released NVIDIA-based 7-seried video cards featuring as part of their Poseidon series of liquid cooled products. ASUS released both a GTX 780 and GTX 770-based product with the hybrid Poseidon cooling solution.

Courtesy of ASUS

All Poseidon series graphics cards come with a hybrid cooling solution, using a combination of fan-based and water-based cooling to propel these cards to new performance heights. The card's GPU is cooled with the DirectCU H20 cooler with water pathed through the integrated barbs to the copper-based cooler. The water inlets are threaded, accepting G1/4" sized male fittings. The memory and VRM components are cooled by a massive dual-fan heat pipe, exhausting air through the rear panel port. Both cards feature the red and black ROG coloration with the Poseidon series name displayed prominently along the right front edge of the card.

Courtesy of ASUS

Both Poseidon series graphics cards, the ROG Poseidon GTX 770 and ROG Poseidon GTX 780, include ASUS' DIGI+ VRM and Super Allow Power power circuitry to ensure stability and component life under the most grueling conditions. When paired with the Poseidon cooling, the GPU ran 20% cooler and 3 times quieter than a comparable reference card with card operating temperatures 16 C lower than the same reference solution.

A lot of news coming from the NVIDIA camp today, including some price drops and price announcements.

First up, the high-powered GeForce GTX 780 is getting dropped from $649 to $499, a $150 savings that will bring the GTX 780 into line with the competition of AMD's new Radeon R9 290X launched last week.

Next, the GeForce GTX 770 2GB is going to drop from $399 to $329 to help it compete more closely with the R9 280X.

Even you weren't excited about the R9 290X, you have to be excited by competition.

In a surprising turn of events, NVIDIA is now the company with the great bundle deal with GPUs as well! Starting today you'll be able to get a free copy of Batman: Arkham Origins, Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag with the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, GTX 780 and GTX 770. If you step down to the GTX 760 or 660 you'll lose out on the Batman title.

SHIELD discounts are available as well: $100 off you buy the upper tier GPUs and $50 off if you but the lower tier.

Need more news? The yet-to-be-released GeForce GTX 780 Ti is also getting a price - $699 based on the email we just received. And it will be available starting November 7th!!

With all of this news, how does it change our stance on the graphics market? Quite a bit in fact. The huge price drop on the GTX 780, coupled with the 3-game bundle means that NVIDIA is likely offering the better hardware/software combo for gamers this fall. Yes, the R9 290X is likely still a step faster, but now you can get the GTX 780, three great games and spend $50 less.

The GTX 770 is now poised to make a case for itself against the R9 280X as well with its $70 drop. The R9 280X / HD 7970 GHz Edition was definitely a better option with its $100 price delta but with only $30 separating the two competing cards, and the three free games, again the advantage will likely fall to NVIDIA.

Finally, the price point of the GTX 780 Ti is interesting - if NVIDIA is smart they are pricing it based on comparable performance to the R9 290X from AMD. If that is the case, then we can guess the GTX 780 Ti will be a bit faster than the Hawaii card, while likely being quieter and using less power too. Oh, and again, the three game bundle.

NVIDIA did NOT announce a GTX TITAN price drop which might surprise some people. I think the answer as to why will be addressed with the launch of the GTX 780 Ti next month but from what I was hearing over the last couple of weeks NVIDIA can't make the cards fast enough to satisfy demand so reducing margin there just didn't make sense.

NVIDIA has taken a surprisingly aggressive stance here in the discrete GPU market. The need to address and silence critics that think the GeForce brand is being damaged by the AMD console wins is obviously potent inside the company. The good news for us though, and the gaming community as a whole, is that just means better products and better value for graphics card purchases this holiday.

As the recommended requirements for BF4 indicate that a mid-range GPU should be able to handle the game, [H]ard|OCP tested out the public beta with the new R9 280X as well as the GTX 770. This not only gives an idea of comparative performance but also a chance to see if the extra memory present on AMD's card gives any performance advantage at 2560 x 1600. At first glance the charts seem to favour NVIDIA but that was not what [H] found when gaming as the high peaks represented points with little or no action and the performance started to suffer during action sequences while the AMD card remained solid throughout both calm and the storms.

"Electronic Arts has opened a public beta of the upcoming Battlefield 4 game debuting the new Frostbite 3 game engine. Today we will preview some gameplay performance in BF4 Beta on an AMD Radeon R9 280X and GeForce GTX 770 and see how the game will challenge today's GPU's. The results are not quite what we expected."

Summary of Events

In January of 2013 I revealed a new testing methodology for graphics cards that I dubbed Frame Rating. At the time I was only able to talk about the process, using capture hardware to record the output directly from the DVI connections on graphics cards, but over the course of a few months started to release data and information using this technology. I followed up the story in January with a collection of videos that displayed some of the capture video and what kind of performance issues and anomalies we were able to easily find.

Our testing proved that AMD CrossFire was not improving gaming experiences in the same way that NVIDIA SLI was. Also, we showed that other testing tools like FRAPS were inadequate in showcasing this problem. If you are at all unfamiliar with this testing process or the results it showed, please check out the Frame Rating Dissected story above.

At the time, we tested 5760x1080 resolution using AMD Eyefinity and NVIDIA Surround but found there were too many issues and problems with our scripts and the results they were presenting to give reasonably assured performance metrics. Running AMD + Eyefinity was obviously causing some problems but I wasn’t quite able to pinpoint what they were and how severe it might have been. Instead I posted graphs like this:

We were able to show NVIDIA GTX 680 performance and scaling in SLI at 5760x1080 but we only were giving results for the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition in a single GPU configuration.

Since those stories were released, AMD has been very active. At first they were hesitant to believe our results and called into question our processes and the ability for gamers to really see the frame rate issues we were describing. However, after months of work and pressure from quite a few press outlets, AMD released a 13.8 beta driver that offered a Frame Pacing option in the 3D controls that enables the ability to evenly space out frames in multi-GPU configurations producing a smoother gaming experience.

The results were great! The new AMD driver produced very consistent frame times and put CrossFire on a similar playing field to NVIDIA’s SLI technology. There were limitation though: the driver only fixed DX10/11 games and only addressed resolutions of 2560x1440 and below.

But the story won’t end there. CrossFire and Eyefinity are still very important in a lot of gamers minds and with the constant price drops in 1920x1080 panels, more and more gamers are taking (or thinking of taking) the plunge to the world of Eyefinity and Surround. As it turns out though, there are some more problems and complications with Eyefinity and high-resolution gaming (multi-head 4K) that are cropping up and deserve discussion.

Plus one GTX 670...

Brand new GPU architectures are typically packaged in reference designs when it comes to power, PCB layout, and cooling. Once manufacturers get a chance to put out their own designs, then interesting things happen. The top end products are usually the ones that get the specialized treatment first, because they typically have the larger margins to work with. Design choices here will eventually trickle down to lower end cards, typically with a price point $20 to $30 more than a reference design. Companies such as MSI have made this their bread and butter with the Lightning series on top, the Hawk line handling the midrange, and then the hopped up reference designs with better cooling under the Twin Frozr moniker.

ASUS has been working with their own custom designs for years and years, but it honestly was not until the DirectCU series debuted did we have a well defined product lineup which pushes high end functionality across the entire lineup of products from top to bottom. Certainly they had custom and unique designs, but things really seemed to crystallize with DirectCU. I guess that is also the power of a good marketing tool as well. DirectCU is a well known brand owned by Asus, and users typically know what to expect when looking at a DirectCU product.

MSI recently announced the GTX 770 Gaming 4GB which combines a factory overclocked GK-104 GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 memory and the company’s Twin Frozr IV cooler on a custom PCB. This card joins the existing MSI GTX 770 with 2GB of memory in the company’s GPU lineup.

Specifications the new graphics card include a GK-104 based GTX 770 GPU with a base clock of 1137 MHz and a GPU Boost clockspeed of 1189 MHz. This compares to the 4GB Zotac GTX 770’s base and boost clockspeeds of 1059 MHz and 1098 MHz and to the reference NVIDIA GTX 770’s 1046 MHz base and 1085 MHz boost. In short, the upcoming MSI card is one of the fastest-clocked models with 4GB of memory. Unfortunately, that 4GB of GDDR5 does not come factory overclocked, and is instead left at the stock 7 GHz clockspeed.

Further, the MSI card is cooled by the company’s Twin Frozr IV cooler. This HSF features two 100mm fans that cool an aluminum fin stack. In turn, that fin stack attaches to the GPU block via five heatpipes. There is no backplate, but the card does have a reinforcing plate between the PCB and cooler (which also, likely, helps dissipate a small bit of the heat generated by the VRMs and RAM).

The card is essentially the same card as the existing 2GB version, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The model number on the 4GB card is N770 TF 4GD5/OC. MSI has not released pricing or availability, but expect it to be around $430 and up for grabs later this summer.

Overclocked GTX 770 from Galaxy

When NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 770 at the very end of May, we started to get in some retail samples from companies like Galaxy. While our initial review looked at the reference models, other add-in card vendors are putting their own unique touch on the latest GK104 offering and Galaxy was kind enough to send us their GeForce GTX 770 2GB GC model that uses a unique, more efficient cooler design and also runs at overclocked frequencies.

If you haven't yet read up on the GTX 770 GPU, you should probably stop by my first review of the GTX 770 to see what information you are missing out on. Essentially, the GTX 770 is a full-spec GK104 Kepler GPU running at higher clocks (both core and memory speeds) compared to the original GTX 680. The new reference clocks for the GTX 770 were 1046 MHz base clock, 1085 MHz Boost clock and a nice increase to 7.0 GHz memory speeds.

Galaxy GeForce GTX 770 2GB GC Specs

The Galaxy GC model is overclocked with a new base clock setting of 1111 MHz and a higher Boost clock of 1163 MHz; both are about 6.5-7.0% higher than the original clocks. Galaxy has left the memory speeds alone though keeping them running at 7.0 GHz effectively.

Returning home on Monday, I was greeted by several (slightly wet) boxes from Asus. Happily, the rainstorm that made these boxes a bit damp did not last long, and the wetness was only superficial. The contents were perfectly fine. I was pleased by this, but not particularly pleased with FedEx for leaving them in a spot where they got wet. All complaints aside, I was obviously ecstatic to get the boxes.

Quite the lineup. The new packaging is sharp looking and clearly defines the contents.

Inside these boxes are some of the latest and greatest video cards from Asus. Having just finished up a budget roundup, I had the bandwidth available to tackle a much more complex task. Asus sent four cards for our testing procedures, and I intend to go over them with a fine toothed comb.

The smallest of the bunch is the new GTX 670 DC Mini. Asus did some serious custom work to not only get the card as small as it is, but also to redesign the power delivery system so that the chip only requires a single 8 pin PCI-E power connection. Most GTX 670 boards require 2 x 6 pin connectors which would come out to be around 225 watts delivered, but a single 8 pin would give around 175 watts total. This is skirting the edge of the official draw for the GTX 670, but with the GK104 chip being as mature as it is, there is some extra leeway involved. The cooler is quite compact and apparently pretty quiet. This is aimed at the small form factor crowd who do not want/need a overly large card, but still require a lot of performance. While the GTX 700 series is now hitting the streets, there is still a market for this particular card. Oh, and it is also overclocked for good measure!

We see a nice progression from big to little. It is amazing how small the GTX 670 DC Mini is compared to the rest, and it will be quite interesting to see how it compares to the GTX 760 in testing.

The second card is the newly released GTX 760 DCII OC. This is again based on the tried and true GK104 chip, but has several units disabled. It has 1152 CUDA cores, but retains the same number of ROPS as the fully enabled chips. It also features the full 256 bit memory bus running at 6 Gbps. It has plenty of bandwidth to provide the card in most circumstances considering the amount of functional units enabled. The cooler is one of the new DirectCU II designs and is a nice upgrade in both functionality and looks from the previous DCII models. It is a smaller card than one would expect, but that comes from the need to simplify the card and not overbuild it like the higher priced 770 and 780 cards. As I have mentioned before, I really like the budget and midrange cards. This should be a really fascinating card to test.

The next card is a bit of an odd bird. The GTX 770 DCII OC is essentially a slightly higher clocked GTX 680 from yesteryear. One of the big changes is that this particular model foregoes the triple slot cooler of the previous generation and implements a dual slot cooler that is quite heavy and with a good fin density. It features six pin and eight pin power connections so it has some legs for overclocking. The back plate is there for stability and protection, and it gives the board a very nice, solid feel. Asus added two LEDs by the power connections which show if the card is receiving power or not. This is nice, as the fans on this card are very silent in most situations. Nobody wants to unplug a video card that is powered up. It retains the previous generation DCII styling, but the cooler performance is certainly nothing to sneeze at. It also is less expensive than the previous GTX 680, but is faster.

All of the cards sport dual DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI outputs. Both DVI ports are dual-link, but only one is DVI-I which can also output a VGA signal with the proper adapter.

Finally we have the big daddy of the GTX 700 series. The 780 DCII OC is pretty much a monster card that exceeds every other offering out there, except the $1K GTX Titan. It is a slightly cut down chip as compared to the mighty Titan, but it still packs in 2304 CUDA cores. It retains the 384 bit memory bus and runs at a brisk 6 Gbps for a whopping 288.4 GB/sec of bandwidth. The core is overclocked to a base of 889 MHz and boosts up to 941 MHz. The cooler on this is massive. It features a brand new fan design for the front unit which apparently can really move the air and do so quietly. Oddly enough, this fan made its debut appearance on the aforementioned GTX 670 DC Mini. The PCB on the GTX 780 DCII OC is non-reference. It features a new power delivery system that should keep this board humming when overclocked. Asus has done their usual magic in pairing the design with high quality components which should ensure a long lifespan for this pretty expensive board.

I do like the protective plates on the backs of the bigger cards, but the rear portion of the two smaller cards are interesting as well. We will delve more into the "Direct Power" functionality in the full review.

I am already well into testing these units and hope to have the full roundup late next week. These are really neat cards and any consumer looking to buy a new one should certainly check out the review once it is complete.

Asus has gone past the "Superpipe" stage with the GTX 780. That is a 10 mm heatpipe we are seeing. All of the DCII series coolers are robust, and even the DC Mini can dissipate a lot of heat.

[H]ard|OCP liked the new GTX 770 Lightning from MSI but thought they would like it better overclocked, perhaps even more than a GTX 680 or HD7970. The triplets below are, from top to bottom, the GTX 680, the GTX 770 and the HD7970, all from the overclocked Lightning family. By using MSI's Afterburner utility [H] pushed the card to 1241MHz on the core and 7.8GHz effective for the RAM, higher than the factory overclock. That speed boost put its performance on par with the overclocked GTX680 but it seems that the impressive speeds that the 7970 Lightning is capable of leaves it comfortably in the lead.

"We take the new MSI N770 Lightning and overclock it to its maximum potential. We will compare it with a highly overclocked MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning and GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7970. Each GPU is getting its best chance to show us how well it can perform, as all of these GPUs are highly overclocked."